Abrasive belt dressings......?

[oldbikedavey]

Any thoughts on such products, especially for shining up aluminium alloys on a bench linisher ?
WD40 'sort - of' works, but a mate uses some aerosol product, 'Kool- something or other' that is seemingly no longer available .
It'd be nice to know of any products or recipes out there....

 

[julianf]

I've never found anything that polishes aluminium.

I mean, you can get it shiny, obviously, but the moment it gets to the air again it starts to oxidize and then it's no longer shiny.

Poorboys (or however it's spelt - the car detailing place) do a blue polish for alloy. I have some here, thinking it may be some sort of magic bullet. It certainly wasnt. Sure, it will cut it, but, again, it will just oxidize again unless you maintain a seal on it forever etc.

 

[Morris]

When you've got your aluminium shiny...

Pardon our interruption...

 

[bricol]

Dunno about on a linisher, but I applied mother mag polish to at least 20 yr old oxidised aluminium on the side of a well used, stored outside, washed when it rains/driven through a puddle Dutton trials car, using a mop on an orbital sander - and it came up shiny enough to see my feet in the reflection. Stayed pretty shiny two years since with absolutely no attention.

 

[hotponyshoes]

There is some aerosol stuff that young spray on the belts, I'll dig it out later and find out the name.
It does help stop the belt clogging up with aluminium so you do get a better finish as you dont get the embedded lumps on the belt gouging across the material.
It doesn't directly do anything towards polishing the Alloy any better except the belt runs smoother and you can get away with using a grade finer than you would otherwise.

If you are doing much aluminium linishing though try a few different belts out. Some are night and day in aluminium. The 3m trizact polish alloy really well without needing any sort of dressing.
Also fit some decent dust extraction to the linisher as half the problem polishing alloy comes from the dust following the belt around and dragging back across the workpiece.

 

[Seadog]

Solvol.

 

[oldbikedavey]

Solvol.

Nifty enough, but I'm trying to nail down the anti-clogging stuff.....

 

[BrokenBiker]

personally ive not found anyhting that will do a job on ally with abrasives. i usually just move to a mop either in a drill or sometimes the lathe with some solvol

 

[Turbo]

You can get a scotchbrite type belt for a linisher for graining stainless steel. If you got a finer grade it would do ally.

 

[hotponyshoes]

This is the stuff for Alloy,
Especially with a decent belt like a cubitron or something
Coolmax NF

 

[oldbikedavey]

This is the stuff for Alloy,
Especially with a decent belt like a cubitron or something
Coolmax NF

That's the one......